Straight and Loney on Feb 14
by Alaskan Blue
Summary: Everyone knows about Dee, Ryo, and JJ; but what about the other guys in the 27th? Ted muses about his single status on the one day when it sucks to be alone...


Disclaimer: FAKE and all its characters belong to Sanami Matoh. This is written for entertainment purposes only and I make no money whatsoever from this.

Preview: This is written in response to a challenge from Ice, from the FAKE mailing list. The challenge was to write a fic from Ted's POV and what he thinks of the different relationships that are going on in the 27th. I openly admit that I didn't quite meet that challenge as I got too much into making Ted into a three dimensional character but hey, it is what it is, hope you like it.

Time setting: About a year after Dee and Ryo finally became official.

Straight and Lonely on 2/14

"Come on Teddy, wake up honey…" Sharon's voice cooed into my ear. "Wakey, wakey!" She purred.

"Mmmm…" I groaned in reply, "just a few more minutes."

"Come on baby, wake up for me…" I felt her tongue, warm and moist trace the outline of my ear, encouraging me to alertness.

"No fair!" I moaned and turned over.

Sharon wasn't put off she merely resumed her earlier ministrations from a different position, now able to slide her tongue along the side of my neck in that spot that she knew drove me nuts. I moaned again, I hated it when she did this. She knew just how to turn me on in the mornings when all I wanted to do was sleep. I felt the gooseflesh rising on my arms and decided to give up. Turning over, I reached for her head to pull her in for a kiss, my fingers twining through her rough, finger length hair.

Wait a minute.

She doesn't have rough hair…

Come to think of it, it isn't _that _short either…

And she broke up with me three weeks ago!

"Cooper!" I yelled, sitting straight up in bed.

"Woof!" The mutt replied loudly, wagging his tail, and trying to lick my face again.

"No Cooper! Bad dog, no licking!" I snapped wiping the dog drool from my face and trying to shove a 95 pound, mangy, waste of fur away from me.

"Woo, woo, woo, woo!!!" He sang, in the weird kind of bark that a malamute has.

I looked at the clock radio on my night stand, 5:20 a.m. Jesus. I looked back at Cooper, "You couldn't have waited another 10 minutes? What's the big idea?"

I threw the sheets aside and got out of bed, shivering at the chill of the room. I could have sworn I turned the heat on the previous night, Cooper followed at my side jumping around like a puppy and whining. "What's got you so worked up boy?" I asked as I walked over to the window and pulled the shade up only to be greeted by a world turned white. "Oh. That." I said dumbly. Cooper 'wooed' again.

"Ugh…"

Of all the days to get a blizzard it had to come on this one? How could it get any worse? I headed to the kitchen and dumped a can of Alpo into Cooper's food bowl and left him scarfing it down as I opened the accordion style curtains that concealed the washer and dryer unit by the refrigerator. I grabbed my long underwear and sweat pants that were still toasty from the night before and pulled them on, then headed back to my bedroom to yank on two pairs of socks and my running sneakers. I had finished tying the last lace when I heard the tell tale 'click, click, click' of Coopers claws on the hardwood floor, and his shaggy black and white head poked through the door, his navy blue leash with its NYPD logo clamped in his massive jaws. He whined and pawed at the floor until I got up and went over to him and took the leash from his mouth.

Cooper was trembling with anticipation and we walked to the front door of my little shotgun house and then went into overdrive as I bent over to clip the leash to his collar. I shook my head in disbelief as his rear end began wiggling so fast I could feel the floorboards creaking under him. I pulled the tiny box that was an f.m. radio and clipped it to my collar and looped the single earphone around the shell of my ear then turned the handle to open the door. Cooper jerked against the leash with enough force to send me sprawling on my stomach. "Cooper, no!" I hollered as my dog began dragging me down the steps that were slick with snow.

He ignored me and dug his feet in and tried to pull me along faster. "Heel!" I yelled and jerked against the leash with all my might. It finally did the trick and he yelped as he was yanked butt first to the ground.

Panting I got up and glared at him. He looked back at me with those icy blue eyes that had brought him to me as a pup and that unmistakable grin possessed by all Nordic sled dogs. I brushed the snow off of my front before it could melt and soak into my sweat suit and sighed, then I led the way to the sidewalk that was coated with a two inch layer of fine, unmarred white powder. Cooper began twitching again. I shook my head as I patted him on his head, "It's a good thing, _one_ of us enjoys this weather." I said, and hit the button on the radio, turning up the volume until I could hear the familiar sound of the weatherman in my ear. "Let's go boy."

It was the signal he had learned over the past three years that meant it was time for him to do the activity he enjoyed most, running. He took off at a slow lope and I jogged alongside him for the first five blocks listening to the dee jays at the station pull their usual annoying morning banter but because of what day it was, it was worse. We hit the corner of 5th and James and advanced to a run for the next leg of our route until reaching the intersection of 9th and Walnut. I stood for a moment trying to catch my breath in the freezing air while Cooper sat in the snow and scratched with his back leg at some kind of itch on his neck. I gazed at the shops that dotted this little area of our neighborhood, the gas station and food mart, Gioviccini's Pizzeria, and found myself frowning at the gaudy red and pink hearts that were taped up to the plate glass windows, flanked by pink silhouetted cupids holding bows with notched arrows. God this day was depressing as hell.

Finally managing to drag some moisture into my freezer burned lungs, we went back to a slow jog and walking for the twelve blocks that looped us around the neighborhood and was the way back to the house. We reached it as the sky was beginning to lighten a little, sunlight tinting the clouds a dull blue with pink. I looked at them hopefully, the snow had let up a bit during the forty five minutes we had been out and it looked as though the clouds that had clogged the sky when I had awoken had cleared off a little, allowing small snatches of grayish blue sky to appear.

We headed in the house and I kicked my shoes of in the foyer and led Cooper to the door at the rear of the house so he could play in the backyard. He took off like a shot the second the screen door opened and within seconds was rolling around and barking his approval. I grinned and headed back into the warmth of the house through the kitchen, hitting the button on the coffee maker as I went so it would be ready when I got out of the shower. I stripped and hopped into the blasting jet of hot water and had just finished rinsing the shampoo from my hair when the clock radio against the far wall came screaming to life., and the last two minutes of ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin" blasted through the bathroom. I had just started to feel alive and ready to face the day armed with good music when Delilah Fitzgibbons, the dee jay from hell announced her presence over the radio waves.

"Good morning New York! It is thirty minutes past the hour and time to rise and shine! We are having the most amazing Valentines Day here in the big apple, I must say! If you haven't looked out the window yet this morning you need to it is a virtual winter wonder land at the moment! That's right while we were sleeping, we got just a little over two inches of snow and it's still coming down but it should clear off around 9 a.m. this morning with clear sunny skies the rest of the day. I tell you folks there is nothing more romantic than fresh fallen snow especially on a day like this, it just makes you want to snuggle up close to the one you love and…."

"Blah, blah, blah!" I shouted over the speaker, drowning out "Her Royal Schmaltziness".

I couldn't for the life of me figure out who had let her take over the morning show of my favorite oldies and classic rock station, I didn't care if it was Valentines Day. Her department was the late night listening program, where pathetic saps and starry eyed teenagers wrote her letters about the wonderful person who had just come into/walked out of/died in their lives and asked her to play songs about them, all the while Delilah moaning and cooing about how sweet and wonderful it all was. I sighed as she continued her happy happy joy joy rant about the virtues of February 14 and all it's trimmings and trappings as I reached for the bar of dial in the shower caddy. I had just lathered my face with Gillette and had begun shaving when she purred over the speaker, "Now that we've got the mornings announcements out of the way let's get on with some music shall we?"

"Yes, lets." I grumbled and barely avoided nicking my ear in the process.

"Before the break we heard Bon Jovi and a little ZZ Top to start off this Valentines Day but I think it's time we heard something that goes out to all those people that don't have someone at this time of year. For those of you who don't have that 'special someone' in your life right now this goes out to you."

My eyes widened in disbelief as the notes of an all too familiar Beatles song began to play and the lyrics that followed, "_I look at all the lonely people!_"

I sputtered and damn near cut my throat as my head involuntarily jerked toward the radio. "You've got to be kidding me!"

But the little box just continued on: "_Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been…_"

I hurriedly rinsed the rest of the shaving foam from my chin and struggled to get out of the shower without falling as the song played on: "_Father Mackenzie, writing the words of the sermon that no-one will hear-_"

"Bitch!" I slammed my hand down on the power button before the next lyric had a chance to get out of the squawk box. "Doesn't she know people kill themselves from hearing shit like that." I muttered remembering a case Bruce and I had worked three years ago.

Granted, the woman had just been beaten senseless by her boyfriend, was tripping on acid, and the song playing was "Sympathy for the Devil" but still… IT COULD HAPPEN!

I sighed and leaned against the bathroom counter as I towel dried my hair and body. I had to get with it. If I kept going like this I would drive myself crazy before the end of the day. Wrapping the towel around my waist I turned to face my reflection in the mirror. "Okay, Ted. It is time to get with it. This is not a big deal. Plenty of guys get dumped. Plenty of guys get dumped three weeks before Valentines Day. This is not the end of the world. You've gotten through plenty of these holidays before, hell, the first 17 years of your life you were able to cope with being single, so there's no reason to go getting your shorts in a bind over it now."

I stared at my reflection making my face a mask of hardened resolve, it was the same face I had perfected during my years at the 27th precinct and it usually made even the most hardened criminals crack. I don't know how many times all I've had was a lot of circumstantial evidence and intuition on a case and that look was what saved my ass and made the perpetrator confess. It was mean, it was tough and it never failed.

Until today.

My shoulders slumped as I gave up. I was just going to have to slog through the day and hope I didn't bite too many people's heads off. I headed into the bedroom and offered up a prayer of thanks that this Valentines day had fallen on a Friday one of the few days we were allowed to wear casual clothes, or at least Commissioner Rose's idea of casual: prussian blue button down shirt, grey sport coat, belt and jeans ("not too faded and no rips please" he had said when announcing his new "lenient dress code"), and black Doc Martens. My gun and shoulder holster followed and I finger combed some gel into my flaming red hair to keep it out of my face and hoped that I wasn't going to have to do much field work today, I was not in the mood.

I headed out of the bedroom and checked my appearance in the full length mirror in the hall, I looked human and not half bad despite what I was feeling so maybe that was a good sign. I found my keys on the end table next to the sofa and opened the door a crack, enough to get my hand and keys out the door and aimed the little remote control at my car, sighing in relief as I heard the engine crank a couple of times and then turn over. Grabbing my coat off the back of the sofa where I had thrown it the night before I pulled it on as I went back through the kitchen and pulled a couple of dog biscuits out of the cookie jar and opened the back door where Cooper was waiting. I ran my hand over his fur and let him chomp on the biscuits. "Okay bud, I'm outta' here. Be good." I straightened and closed the door then flipped the switches that would turn off the lights in the kitchen. I heard him woof again, the sound muffled through the door and I hoped that today he would be smart and stay in his doghouse as opposed to nesting in the snow, the way he usually did. I really didn't feel like toweling him off when I got home tonight.

I went out to my car and cranked up the heat shivering at first as the cold air was blasted out of the vents, making way for the toasty warmth that began flowing through the car. I flipped the visor above the steering wheel down and looked through CD holder searching for one disk that would be perfect for this day. I found it, slipped it into the narrow slot of the stereo system, and turned the volume up and felt a wide grin spread across my face as a familiar voice came over the speaker system, _"Aaaaaaaaaaaauuuugh!"_

I put the car in reverse and felt myself beginning to relax as Sam Kinneson's "Louder than Hell" routine began playing. Now while I never could seriously agree with his whole "women are shit and should be treated as such" mentality, for a man that had been kicked to the curb by a woman he'd been seeing for more than a year, it was quite therapeutic. Trying not to laugh too hard and get myself in a car accident I carefully made my way out of the neighborhood through the snow and ice slicked streets and made the trip to work. I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned the corner and made the right that led me into the parking garage that was three blocks away from the 27th precinct. I waved at Marcia, the woman who sat in the booth and checked the permits and identification of people who were using the structure as visitors as I drove past it and headed down the row to my space. I turned the car off just as Sam was going into his whole "how to get rid of your wife by doing cocaine" spiel, and opened the door stepping out of the comforting heat of the car and back into the cold. I pulled my coat tighter around me and grabbed my briefcase out of the backseat. I slammed the door closed and hit the remote lock as I headed down the concrete ramp towards the street.

"Hey there Ted!" Marcia said as I passed the booth. With the exception of J.J. Adams, Marcia had to be the happiest person I'd ever met in my life. She was a heavy set, black woman in her mid sixties, who wore her graying hair in a French twist and had the warmest brown eyes in the world. She had also worked for the city for the past thirty seven years during which she had suffered, two miscarriages, getting robbed and shot while working a late shift back in '81', she had a painful case of arthritis in her hands, type two diabetes, and for whatever bizarre reason, refused to retire.

"Hey." I replied stopping and setting my briefcase on the ground and leaning on the ledge of the window to chat for a moment. "How're you this morning?"

"I'm just fine, look at what my grandkids got me today!" She turned her head and nodded towards a large bouquet of yellow roses in an ornate crystal vase that sat next to a large, open box of chocolates on the back shelf. "Aren't they just the sweetest?"

I looked at them and plastered a smile on my face, "Aww, that's great Marcia-" Before I could finish she reached into the chocolates pulled one out and stuffed it into my mouth with a grin.

"Yeah, but they don't seem to know that just cuz' I don't need insulin like their momma, I still can't have the sweets. Here you go Ted!"

I chewed carefully, hoping that whatever she had given me wasn't cream, or some kind of fruit flavoring filled. I eased up when I found it was caramel. I swallowed the treat and grinned at her. "Thanks Marcia." I bent down and picked up my briefcase and wished her a happy Valentines day. "Keep warm!" I told her and moved on as a Buick with government tags pulled in and stopped at the booth.

"Thanks Ted, you too!" She called before turning her attention to the Buick.

I stepped out onto the street and headed up the sidewalk to the building that held the offices of the 27th. Thinking back to the roses Marcia had had in her booth and wondered if maybe I shouldn't have done something like that for my own mother. I'd placed an order with 1-800-FLOWERS the day before and had arranged for a large arrangement of Shasta daisies to be delivered to her home. True, they weren't the traditional kind of flower that you sent a woman on February 14 and it wasn't that I couldn't afford something more extravagant, but I still hadn't gotten over what she had said to me over the phone a week prior to the holiday when I had told her about Sharon and our break up. _"Maybe you should try harder."_ She had said.

_"Try harder?"_ I had responded, totally lost.

_"Well, nice girls like __Sharon__ don't come along every day you know. They're not growing on trees."_

_ "Mom, she dumped me for what she saw as a better deal, there's really no way I could have tried harder…"_ I had said blankly.

_"It's the whole cop thing honey. I know you don't like to talk about it but there's just not a lot of women with careers that want a man who might not come home at night because he got killed during his shift."_

_ "Uh… Mom? I'm a detective, so I don't get shot at a lot _(okay, so that wasn't **totally** true, ever since Dee Laytner had joined the force there had been more lead flying in our general direction than there was in all the Quentin Tarentino movies combined)_. And don't you think that at twenty nine years old, it's a little late for me to start looking at other career options?"_

_ "I'm just saying that you keep complaining about how these girls are always dumping you. Every single relationship you've had in the past five years has always ended up with you feeling lonely and rejected. You either need to find another cop or look at a different job. Let's face it, cops don't get to have the good girls like doctors and lawyers and what-not."_

I had gritted my teeth in frustration. _"Okay first off mom, **every** relationship I've had in the past five years adds up to the grand total of two. Second, I can't date another cop because it's kind of frowned on _(okay, that wasn't exactly the truth either because everyone knew about Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean, I didn't even want to **think** about J.J. and his partner)_, and third," _I stumbled and came up blank, I had said there was a third point but I couldn't really think of something to argue with on the last thing she had said.

She was right about the kind of women that cops usually wound up with. I remembered a line I'd heard off some cancelled t.v. show once. A grizzled old police officer was talking to the rookie he had been partnered with and was telling him the facts of life in police work, how the job sucked, the pension plans were shit, we smoked ourselves into early graves and what kind of women did we marry? Hookers, nurses, and other cops. I finally came up with a lame argument and spoke over the phone to my mom, _"And third, the doctors and lawyers you're talking about are rarely **girls**, mom, they're women."_

The conversation had gone steadily downhill after that one, and she had hung up on me. I reached the entrance to the building and opened the door as I wondered how in the world a woman who had been raised a strict Irish-Catholic could act so much like a Jewish mother. I waved to Jake Sutherland, the overweight pencil pusher at the front desk and headed through the jungle of desks, ringing telephones, and uniformed beat cops that made up the first floor of the building back to the stairs that lead up to the third floor that was the criminal investigations unit that I worked in and made my way to my desk. The office furniture had been rearranged three weeks ago so that now all desks were in pairs and partners faced one another, and made up two long rows. The new arrangement made the place even more cramped than it had been previously and everyone couldn't wait until the offices were rebuilt and Commissioner Rose, Dee and Ryo, J.J. and Drake, and Bruce and myself could get back into our nice offices with doors. As it was, the areas that _had_ been those rooms was still separated by huge tarps of plastic and yellow crime scene tape. It was a grim reminder of the bomb that had gone off in Commissioner Rose's office a month ago and had pretty much destroyed our floor.

It was a good thing however that the idiot who had set the damn thing had set the timer wrong and the explosive had gone off at 2:34 in the morning when the only two members of the CI unit that were in the office that night were on a doughnut break downstairs. The amazing thing however was how people from the Bronx unit had shown up on off days to aid in the clean up of the office so that we could get our unit back into operation. I had taken it as a token of goodwill up until the Saturday I had been working with detective Mitchell from the Bronx, and we had been lifting what was left of Drake's desk to get it out of the mess and he had told me no thanks was necessary, that "it's better to give up a couple of our off days to help you guys get back on your feet rather than have you camping at our place again!", as he so eloquently put it.

I shrugged out of my coat and hung it on one of the many hooks that lined the wall just inside the door and headed to my desk that faced J.J.'s. The perennially vested, man was already sitting at his desk, the telephone receiver pressed to his ear and he was nearly concealed by a gigantic arrangement of white roses in a ceramic vase that had a red ribbon tied around the neck. I chucked my briefcase under my desk, sat down, and reached for the small sheaf of papers that sat next to my own telephone, messages that had come in for me overnight. I sighed as I looked through them and caught snippets of J.J.s conversation. It only took a few seconds to determine who he was talking to in his animated voice, "Oh I just _love _them! They're so perfect, you always know just what to get me. Did you get yours yet? No? Oh, well they'll probably be there soon. Oh you big silly, I'm not telling you, that would ruin the surprise! What? Of course they deliver flowers to the hospital on Valentines day!"

I sighed, while everybody in the world knew that J.J. was gay, few were aware of his relationship with Drake, the only reason he felt it was safe to mention it around me was because I had stopped by J.J.'s apartment one morning a few months back to pick him up for work because his car was in the shop. He had told me the night before that he still might be getting dressed and to just let myself in so I had, and had walked in on the two men necking on the sofa with Drake wearing nothing but a smile. I shuddered at the memory and wondered what everyone else in the precinct would think if they found out that J.J. and Drake were "partners" in _every_ sense of the word, well, at least they would be once again when Drake got out of the hospital and physical therapy in a couple of months and Bruce got back from his leave. I missed my own partner, it wasn't that I disliked J.J., it was just that we were too different and had come close to killing one another too many times in the last few weeks of our temporary partnership, or more accurately, _I_ had come close to killing him.

It had started when we had both been taking a turn on a stake out that Dee and Ryo had been working.

There we were both sitting in the car, I was sipping my coffee, J.J. was reading the latest issue of GQ,, and the night had been completely uneventful. I was taking another long draw of Folgers when suddenly J.J. had squealed like a ten year old girl and yelled, "Oh my God!!!! I do not believe it!!!"

"What!? WHAT!?" I had yelled straightening up, spilling my coffee all over myself and looking around wildly at the building we were watching, expecting to see our guys coming down the stairs carrying a mutilated body or something, after all isn't that the sort of thing that warrants that type of an outburst?

"Look at that!" He said thrusting the magazine under my nose. "Can you believe it?!"

I stared at the photograph in the article he was showing me. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, some guy, on some runway, in some kind of outfit, that some designer said was some kind of fashion. "What about it?" I asked peeved and reaching for napkins to mop the coffee off my slacks.

"What about it? What about it? Look at it!" J.J. tapped the headline at the top of the page.

I read it out loud, "'What's Hot in Cold January' What about it?" I asked again my voice on edge.

J.J. groaned and began speaking to me as if I were a small child. "It's plain as day, Ted. Come on, white pants, white shirt, white trenchcoat? In January? Please it's violating one of the ten commandments of fashion!"

"And that is?" I asked dryly.

"Thou shalt not where white after Labor Day, duh!" He shook his head. "Really Ted, how in the world do you manage?" He shook his head again and slouched back in the seat and began flipping through the pages again.

I felt my hands curl into fists and I braced them on the steering wheel as I looked down at my ruined pants. "You are so getting my dry cleaning bill you fruity little… Ughhh…. When does Drake get out of the hospital?"

"Few more months He said and ripped open a paper tab to run his wrist over a cologne sample.

I groaned again. And Bruce wouldn't be back for four… Just my luck. Bruce and his wife have a baby, Drake gets shot, and who do I get paired up with? This was definitely not turning out to be a good year…

I snapped out of my musings in time to hear the last bit of J.J. and Drakes conversation, "Well don't you worry baby, I'm talking to that girl today at 1:00 and her statement shouldn't take too much time to get written up, what? Yeah, the one from the McMurray case, uh huh, no she's totally on board. That's right, anyway, I'll be getting out of here at five sharp for sure and I may even be able to bug out a little earlier. Okay, kiss kiss, sweetie! No! Well I love you more… No I love _you_ more-"

I groaned and pushed away from my desk and grabbed a ceramic mug off of it to go get a cup of coffee and escape the back and forth drivel between J.J. and his partner/lover. Now granted, I've never been homophobic, hell my best friend from high school told me he was gay three months after graduation, but I am definitely not the kind of person who can handle that kind of schmaltz over the phone. I headed for the back and the little area that doubled as a conference/break room and hoped that someone had put on a fresh pot of coffee that morning. I rounded the corner just in time to hear two familiar voices speaking in hushed tones.

"Well I never thought you would have done it without some sort of prep work first!" Came a deep voice.

"Oh leave me alone, I just didn't think about it." Replied a higher tenor.

"An electric shaver in _that _area? Jeez Ryo, you've got more balls than I do." I raised my hand to cover my eyes as I heard Dee's sarcasm.

"Well I wanted to do something different for the 14th, you know, a surprise?" Ryo responded.

"Oh I was surprised all right! You didn't think to use even a lotion afterwards?"

I coughed loudly and stepped into the room, glaring at Dee as I made for the coffee pot. He grinned widely at me and leaned against the counter holding his mug while Ryo blushed to the roots of his hair and took a seat in one of the folding chairs next to the long conference table. "Happy V Day, Tedd-o!" Dee crowed and clapped me on the shoulder, knocking me off balance slightly and making the liquid slosh around the pot.

I glared at him again and then filled my cup. "What's so happy about it?" I growled before taking a sip of the black sludge and grimacing.

"Aww… What's wrong Teddy? No date for the night?" Dee, grinned wider at me.

"No, how bout you?" I retorted.

I smirked inwardly to see Dee falter and Ryo's blush intensified, if that were possible. While everyone knew what their relationship was it still wasn't something they advertised to the world, at least not in the office, there was still that whole fraternization rule, the fact that they were partners, and the whole gay thing didn't help either. I didn't see what the problem was personally, after all, it seemed to me that the grand majority of the 27th precinct at least swung both ways, and now that I was contemplating it, a thought struck me like a bolt from the blue and I said it aloud before I could stop myself. "Holy shit, am I the _only_ straight guy here?"

Ryo choked on the doughnut he'd been munching on and Dee looked at me speculatively. "Hmmm… Now that you mention it-"

"_Don't_ answer that!" I said and held up my hand in protest. "I don't want to know."

"Fine, have it your way, Ted. But take heart. Bruce will be back soon!" He grinned at me and downed the last of his mug before refilling it and tossing it in the sink. "Come on Ryo! Lot's of paperwork to get done!"

The two men dislodged themselves from their spots and headed out the door to return to their desks. I frowned as Dee smacked Ryo's ass just before they were out the door. It was something that the rest of the office wasn't able to see but I sure as hell could. "Nice Dee, real class you got there!" I yelled sarcastically.

His only answer was a deep laugh punctuated by Ryo's hiss of consternation. I sighed and took another long draw of the poison the department liked to refer to as Maxwell House and headed back to my desk where J.J. was already busy at work doing the paperwork we ourselves had let fall behind a little. He looked at me sharply and said, "Look Ted, I know this isn't the greatest day for you but some of us may have plans for tonight that don't include picking up a bucket of KFC and snuggling close to the furball." He tapped the solitary picture frame sitting on the corner of my desk that held a snapshot of Cooper and I, "You've already spent an hour of the day moping about and goofing off."

He grabbed a two inch thick stack of paperwork, held it high in the air and let in drop in front of me with a loud thud. "We've got to get through all of this before the weekend, and I've got a statement to take today. Now move it!" J.J. shoved a few stray purple hairs out of his eyes and gave me a long menacing stare before turning back to his own mess of wood pulp and ink.

I shook my head in disbelief and looked at him for a minute. Annoying as J.J. can be at times he really is one of the best officers I know. While he's the most "over the top" person I've ever met, especially when he and Drake are having some kind of disagreement and their after-work partnership is on the rocks and he's back to obsessing over Dee, he's probably one of the most dedicated officers I know. I'd lost count of the number of times during the few weeks we'd been together that I'd gone home at five and he'd stayed till eight p.m. or even later, and then when he'd finally left the office he'd gone to the hospital to sit with Drake until visiting hours were over. At least Drake had someone that cared about him, that must be nice…

My thoughts trailed down the path of self pity again as I distractedly looked at the roses the hospitalized blonde had sent his partner but was soon yanked out of them by something sharp hitting the side of my face. I shook my head and sat up straight and startled to see J.J. holding his stapler in the open position and squeezing the top half of it, firing little aluminum projectiles at the side of my face. "Jesus, J.J.!" I yelled. The entire office grew hushed and looked in our direction, I shrank in my chair and ran my hand over the skin where the staples had made contact. "Was that absolutely necessary?" I hissed as loudly as I dared and the office resumed its usual chatter.

"Yes! It's 9:15 already you dolt, get to work!" He growled.

I groaned and turned my attention to the paperwork in front of me. God how I hated this part of the job. Filling in the blanks and typing the reports. I had to get nine written today, most would be simple one or two page jobs but the Johnson and Littlefield cases were going to be a bear. I had a feeling that while J.J. might be getting out of work early today, I would not. I drained the last contents of my mug and switched my computer on and began typing.

The first hour of paperwork went by faster than I expected. Then the delivery boys started showing up and my heart sank. The first one was a dozen roses with foxglove or another kind of bell shaped flower mixed in, and it came for Brenda, the filing clerk that was a part time secretary for Rose. It was followed by tulips for Jenny Cranston, the detective on loan to us for a few days from homicide. And there were plenty more after that for all the various men and women that worked in our department. By 11:30 I was seriously considering taking an early lunch and not coming back. I had felt like shit this morning but seeing this was rubbing salt in a gaping wound that was growing larger by the minute. I was about to suggest the lunch idea to J.J. when a leggy blonde bombshell in five inch red high heels walked into our department and waved to everybody, one person in particular.

"Why Ryo! Good to see you again!" Crowed FBI agent, Diana Spacey as she walked over to the desks that were caddy-corner to mine and J.J.'s. She put her arms around Ryo and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

I grinned widely to see Dee stand up, nearly knocking his chair over in the process and lean over the large space created by the connected furniture and get in the sexy agent's face. "Don't even start it Diana…" He said warningly.

"Start what Laytner?" She smiled innocently and shrugged out of the long trench coat that had been concealing an eye-popping red dress made of some shimmery material and was cut several inches above her knees, and dipped dangerously low in the front. "I just stopped by to pick up Berk and say hi!" She smirked and patted Dee's cheek before she swished down the aisle her coat thrown over her arm.

She paused at our little station and spoke to J.J., "So Jemmy, how's Drake doing?" She leaned against the sides facing him and giving me a bird's eye view of her ass, damn but that woman had some nerve.

"He's fine." J.J. reported stiffly and I barely suppressed a chuckle, trust that the only person with enough daring to put J.J. on guard of his man would be Diana.

"Good to hear." She said and turned towards me, now giving J.J. the rear view (totally wasted on him too, the lucky dog.) "Hey there, Ted."

"You're looking good, Diana." I said casually. "What brings you into town? We haven't had anything too catastrophic happen lately that the FBI would be involved in."

She let out one of her trademark giggles that she hid behind her hand. "Oh no, I'm not here on business," and she glanced to the back of the room where Rose was gathering his things. "This little trip is all pleasure." She winked at me.

"That so?" I said. "Where are you off too?"

"Berk and I are going for a little weekend trip down to Boston for the 14th." She said. "How about you? Any plans?"

"None." I said, it came out more pleasantly than I'd expected.

"Aww, that's too bad." She said and Rose approached with his briefcase in one had and his coat over one shoulder.

"Ready to go Dee Dee?" He asked.

"Sure thing babe!" She said and stood up straight. "Have a great weekend Ted, J.J."

She smiled at me and nodded at J.J. then pausing as they walked down they aisle she leaned over and whispered something in Dee's ear that made the darker haired man choke and sputter on the coffee he had been drinking and stand up yelling, "Why you little-!"

It was only answered by the woman's high pitched laugh and Rose's deep chuckle as they made their way out the door. I shook my head in disbelief as I watched them go. And for a moment wondered at how much of a bitching irony life was when it came to love and attraction. How was it that I could be an easy going guy who tried to treat anyone he dated with respect and faithfulness and I got jilted every time, and a guy like Berkeley Rose got everything with breasts and a pulse?! Caligula had stricter morals for Christ's sake!

I looked at the clock on my computer and it read ten till noon, turning to J.J. I asked, "Feel like lunch?"

He looked up at me from the note he was scribbling on a post it and rifled through the sheaf of papers that was left of his stack and sighed. "How many of those have you gotten typed up?"

I looked through my own share just to show him up in the drama queen department and imitated his overdone sigh "Three."

He shot me a look, "How about we order in?"

I groaned, "Come on J.J.! I'm gonna' go nuts if we stay in here!"

"Deal with it." He said coldly and pulled out the small cardboard sheet he kept in his desk that had a dozen different restaurants that delivered written on it. He ran a finger down the list and said, "How about Italian?"

"I've had leftover pizza for the past two nights, not looking for anything from the boot country thank you very much." I said and rested my head in my propped up hand.

"W.G. Grinders?" He said.

"Not in the mood for sandwiches."

He ran down to the very last number listed, "Chinese?"

"Bingo."

J.J. dialed the number and placed the order. He hung up the phone, "Be here in twenty minutes." He told me.

I yawned and leaned back in my chair, stretching then stood up reaching in my pocket for change. "You want a Coke or something?" I asked J.J.

"Yeah thanks." He replied and I headed back to the break room to get a few cans of soda out of the vending machine. I dropped the coins in the slots and hit the buttons that made the machine spit out the cans of over-caffeinated, sugary goodness and headed back to where J.J. waited. I set his cans by his computer and resumed work for the short time it took for a twenty something kid to approach us and ask, "Order for Adams and O'Brien?"

"That's us." I said and stood up to get access to my wallet and J.J. followed suit.

We paid the kid and he left us with two white plastic bags that were tied off in knots at the handles. I made short work of the plastic with my pocket knife and soon we had chopsticks in hand and were munching on greasy noodles and over-cooked chicken and pork as we continued clicking away at our keyboards. I paused after finishing off my rice to crack open my fortune cookie and snorted when I read what was written in the pale green lettering, "_Expect a wonderful new person in your life…" _J.J. opened his and laughed out loud. "What is it?" I asked.

"You ever play the 'between the sheets' game with the fortune cookies?" He asked, grinning.

"Yeah, when I was like, fourteen years old!" I responded with a smirk.

"This one's the best yet." He said. J.J. cleared his throat and let his voice take on a stage quality one would expect to hear for a Shakespearian soliloquy. "_The most important love of all is, of course, self love_…" Then he started laughing again and even I had to join in with him before we both settled down and got back to work.

About an hour had passed when the phone on J.J.'s desk rang, he picked it up and exchanged some information with the person on the other end then hung up and rose from his seat. "I've got to go for a minute, they've screwed something up in the evidence locker on the Littlefield case."

"Oh great!" I said and looked at him.

"It's nothing big," he said and glanced at his watch. "I'll be gone a half hour tops. Look there's a woman coming in at one o' clock to give a statement on the McMurray case that Drake and I had. If she gets here before I get back keep her here okay?" He said.

"Sure thing." I said and shoveled another load of rapidly cooling moo-goo-gai-pan into my mouth.

J.J. headed out the door and I resumed my summary of the field work we had done on the Johnson case two weeks ago. I was so absorbed in my work I barely noticed the person who came up beside me. "Detective O'Brien?"

I looked up startled to see a young woman standing on the opposite side of my desk. She was very pretty, with chocolate brown eyes, beneath a brown woolen newsboy cap a long pony-tail of black hair that hung to her mid back. She was wearing a grey cable knit sweater and blue jeans with hiking boots, a brown leather bomber jacket with some partially concealed patches sewn onto one of the sleeves was thrown over her left arm and a long, oatmeal colored knit scarf hung from her neck. I didn't know how old she was but I would have guessed maybe she was in her mid twenties, I also took it as a good sign that the only jewelry she wore was a small pair of silver hoop earrings. "Uh yeah, that's me. Can I help you with something?"

She smiled, "Sorry to trouble you, the lady at the front desk directed me to you, I'm here to speak with Detective Adams, I was supposed to make a statement."

"Oh yeah," I said and stood up. I offered her my hand and she stuffed the large ring of keys with an ID holder on them she was holding into the pocket of her jacket and shook my hand. "Adams had to step out for a little bit but he'll be back shortly you can wait here if you don't mind. He didn't give me your name, Ms.?"

"Broukhov." She supplied, "Laurelai Broukhov, and thank you." She said, and smiled again, a very nice smile at that it lit up her whole face and made her eyes sparkle. I wondered at that, she had an obviously Russian name but she certainly didn't look it. There was something strange about her features, slightly rounded and darker skin, I tried to place what ethnicity she was and came up with nothing.

I stepped around to J.J.'s side and pulled out his chair, offering it to her. "Sorry, we usually have seats at the sides but as you can see," I waved towards the tarps and tapes that made a plastic wall on the far side of the room, "we're a little cramped for space."

She laughed and stepped over to the chair, "This sort of thing happen often?" She said jokingly.

"Ummm…" I bit my lip and frowned in concentration as I began counting mentally and a nervous look crossed her face. I distracted her by asking, "So can I get you a cup of coffee while you wait? You must be cold."

"Coffee would be great." She answered.

"How do you take it?"

"Black please."

'No problem, I'll be right back."

I made my third trip to the break room that day and lifted the pot to sniff it. Coughing on the noxious fumes that rose from the mud in the bottom I chucked it down the sink and rinsed the glass container out to start a fresh batch. I rummaged through the cabinets to find the paper cups as the ancient machine began groaning and chugging and a stream of dark liquid began to drip into the container. I leaned against the counter, waiting for it to fill and thought about the woman now occupying J.J.'s chair. I thought about that smile she had given me, the one that had made her eyes sparkle and- "CHUG! CHUG! POW!"

I jumped as the coffee maker finished the cycle with it's usual fanfare of disgusting noises and filled the paper cup I held in my hands, then headed back to where she waited. I popped out the little paper handles and gave it to her carefully, "Here you go Ms. Broukhov, fresh cup."

She accepted it with another warm smile and said, "Just Laurelai, please."

"Sure thing." I glanced at my watch and told her, "Detective Adams should be back any minute now, just make yourself comfortable."

"Great." She draped her jacket over J.J.s chair, pulled her cap off and sat down, blowing on the steaming coffee before taking a sip. "So you're not involved in your partners case?" She asked me.

"Uh no, not this one. J.J. and I are only temporary partners until our own get out of the hospital and the nursery."

She looked taken aback at my joke and I explained, "You see, my partner, Bruce Mitchell, he's on family leave right now since he and his wife just had their first baby, and J.J.'s partner Drake got shot in the leg during an arrest a month ago. They put us together for that time. The case you're making a statement on was originally handled by Drake and J.J."

"Oh I see."

I was getting ready to ask her a few questions about herself when J.J. showed back up still brushing snow out of his purple locks. "Oh, Ms. Broukhov! Thank you so much for waiting! Sorry about the inconvenience, I hope Ted here took care of you." He said and offered his hand to Laurelai as she stood up.

"Yeah no problem at all. I've only been waiting for a few minutes."

"Perfect! Let me just get into my desk and get the right forms and we'll get this all taken care of."

Laurelai stepped to the side by my desk again as J.J. began rooting around through his drawers searching for the right paperwork, when she spied the picture on my desk. She snatched it up and looked at it closely before saying, "What a beautiful dog! I love his eyes."

"Thanks." I grinned, there was one advantage to Cooper, women flipped for him.

"How on earth do you have him though? Most breeders destroy Malamutes when they're born with blue eyes." She said curiously.

I looked at her amazed, she knew her breeds! "Yeah," I responded, "that's how I got him actually. I went to a man who breeds Nordic dogs, looking for a husky and I got there a little early. He was out in the barn with his wife looking at the newest batch of pups that had just opened their eyes and I heard him saying that the one with blue eyes was gonna' have to go. When I asked him what that meant he explained it in the nicest possible terms and my mind was made up. I told the guy that he was either going to give me that mutt or I was reporting his ass to the humane society for cruelty to animals. When he learned I was a cop, he stopped arguing and let me have him for twenty bucks." I looked at her again and wondered if maybe that fortune cookie hadn't been on to something after all and if I maybe should ask her out for a movie or something if she didn't have plans for the night.

"Okay, got everything we need!" J.J. said slamming a drawer shut and standing up straight. "Let's go downstairs to one of the interrogation rooms, it'll be a little more private." He said. J.J. handed her cap and scarf to her and yanked her jacket off the back of his chair. The keys she had shoved into the pocket earlier came flying out and sailed across the desk to land at my feet. "Whoops!" J.J. exclaimed.

I bent to pick them up when I noticed the ID case attached to the key ring. Prominently displayed in the clear plastic window, instead of a drivers license was an NYU student ID card. My heart sank as I handed them to her and asked what I already knew the answer to, "So you're a student?"

"Yeah, it's my last year." She said.

"Lucky you." I said lamely, "It was nice meeting you Laurelai." I raised my hand in a weak wave of farewell and watched as she followed J.J. to the stairs that led down to the second floor.

I shook my head at my rotten luck. Just my fortune that the one woman I'd met since Sharon that seemed halfway interesting was a college student. Even if it was her last year, that would put her at, the oldest, twenty-two and I was only a few months away from a cake with thirty candles on it, and in my experience women that age did not go for cops of mine.

I sank back into my chair and looked around the office again, which was, by this time, resembling more of an English garden, rather than a police station. I rolled my eyes as yet another delivery guy strolled in which a flower arrangement and headed down the rows of desks and I was surprised when he stopped at Ryo. "Are you Dee Laytner?" The guy asked looking at his little clipboard.

"No, that's Dee." He pointed across the way where Dee had a telephone tucked in the crook of his neck and was taking notes on a scratch pad.

The man waited until Dee had finished his conversation and hung up the phone, then spoke. "Dee Laytner?"

"Yeah?" Dee looked at the man confused.

"Delivery for you." The man sat the vase down on Dee's desk and held out the clipboard, "Could you sign by the X please?"

"Wait a minute, who sent me- Whoa! These aren't supposed to come here!" He looked at the arrangement and pulled the gift card out of the holder.

"Sorry?" The man asked.

"Oh jeez man you guys screwed it up!" He said rising out of his chair agitated. "These are supposed to go over to 57th and Doray!"

"Look dude, I just take 'em where the form tells me to." The man said and held the clipboard out to Dee again.

"Shit, just what I needed." He muttered and snatched the clipboard and pen out of the guys hand and scrawled his signature. Dee shoved the object back into the man's chest and grabbed his sport coat of the back of his chair. "Come on Ryo! We just got a lead, and have to stop by the orphanage."

"For what?" Ryo asked standing as well.

Dee shoved the flowers into Ryo's arms, "They were supposed to deliver these to Mother and got the payee and recipient addresses mixed up."

Ryo waited for Dee, to gather the rest of his things, all the while a confused expression on his face, before speaking slowly. "Dee? If they got the payee's address wrong from the credit card, wouldn't these have gone to your apartment instead of here?"

The darker haired man flushed and stammered, "Uh well-"

Ryo continued his eyes narrowing, "The only reason these would have come to the precinct is if they'd been charged to the department account…"

"Well, can't lose any time! Let's go!" Dee grinned widely and dashed for the door.

"Ugh! Dee!" Ryo groaned shaking his head and following the direction his partner had gone.

I watched them go and sighed at the usual antics of Dee. I was impressed that the man still had his job, like J.J. he was a good cop and totally devoted, but the stunts he had pulled… And gotten away with! I grinned as I remembered J.J. telling me the story of their vacation in England. How Dee had stolen a motorcycle and ridden it at top speed through woods and roads slick with rain to get back to their hotel to save Ryo's life. I thought about that for a bit, feeling a little envious of Ryo. How lucky could a person get, really? To have a person who cared about you so much that they would be willing to put themselves in grave danger, not only of getting maimed or killed, but arrested and going to prison in a foreign country (granted, Great Britain had nothing on, oh say, _Singapore,_ but still…) I thought about Sharon and Michelle my girlfriend of three years ago, I definitely couldn't see either of them doing anything like that to save _my_ ass, too great a risk of breaking a nail or mussing their perfect hair. Thinking again about the two partners who were so much more than that I began to make some strange associations that had to do with the varied sexual preferences in our precinct.

There was Dee, proudly bi-sexual and Ryo, who Dee had spent two years dragging him kicking and screaming out of the closet. Then J.J., who left nothing to question and Drake, who was much like Ryo and kept it private. Berkely Rose, who stuck it in anything that held still long enough got Agent Spacey! I frowned, considering. Then there was me. Straight and lonely on February 14. Hmmm… The rusty gears in my head turned noisily as I did the math. Being attracted to the same gender romantic happiness. Being straight getting kicked in the emotional balls and having to deal with a domineering mother. Suddenly, the whole, grazing both sides of the fence didn't sound so bad, maybe I should try it out. I glanced up and over at the new rookie Mitch Hanson, who all the women in the department had been crowing about how cute he was and how he was a dead ringer for another James Dean and "he's got the cutest ass too," as J.J. had put it (wait, did I just call J.J. a woman? Oh well, not far off.) I watched him as he stood to put some folders in the filing cabinet and had to bend over to do it presenting me with a prime view of the aforementioned ass. I waited and watched for a few seconds, expecting some kind of reaction form my own body, then felt my mouth pull itself into a flat line of skepticism. I had nothing. I exhaled and looked back to the computer thinking, that maybe things like that took awhile. I could change. After all when I was a kid I hated pickles, now I love them and order extras on every sandwich. A small voice in the back of my head mocked with, "_Nice reasoning asshole, but it took you twenty five _years_ to learn to like pickles._" Besides, if I was to start liking guys my mother would be all too happy to have something else to bitch at me about.

I went through the next few hours like a zombie, my hands were there typing the reports, but my mind was off in la la land. I was snapped out of my daydreams my a streak of motion that zipped through the room and stopped at my desk. The little blur formed into a fifteen year old kid with platinum blonde hair, skin the color of smooth chocolate milk, and gigantic blue eyes (the physical look of the kid never ceased to astound me on the mystery that was genetics). "Ted?" He asked nervously.

"What's up Bikky?" I hit the 'save' icon and leaned back in my chair to look at him.

"Where's Dee and Ryo?"

"They went out a few hours ago on a case. Said they were gonna' stop by the orphanage too." I replied taking him in and marveling at his appearance.

I'd never seen him like this before and was halfway tempted to take him down to booking so I could get a picture just to prove that I wasn't lying when I told people about this later. Bikky's usual wardrobe consisted of those hideous oversized t-shirts and shorts all the young people were wearing nowadays and rollerskates or sneakers. Today underneath a dress coat I knew Ryo only let him take out of the closet for special occasions, he was wearing khaki slacks with perfectly pressed pleats, a red button down shirt tucked into the hem of his pants and black dress shoes. His mop of hair, usually mashed under a baseball cap, was neatly combed back and in a shorter than usual ponytail.

"Are they going to be back soon?" He asked, fidgeting nervously.

"I dunno' Bikk. Is there something wrong?" It was a distinct possiblility after all, he was dressed like a person who'd had their brain washed by aliens, or at least that's what I thought it would take to make Bikky dress this way.

"I need Ryo's help!" He said and held out his hand, "I can't figure out how to put it on!"

I looked down at what he held in his hand, a black necktie. I chuckled, "You're fifteen years old and you don't know how to get one of these on? And what's with the get up?" I waved at his clothing.

He sighed in aggravation and said, "I'm meeting Carol for dinner at The Olive Garden and I wanted to look nice!"

I stared in disbelief, those rusty wheels turning in my head again. Here Bikky was, a kid who wasn't even old enough to drive, who not only was he able to get a date on Valentines day, but it was with a beautiful young woman three years his senior? And yet I was cursed… Life was so unfair. I cleared my throat, "What time are you supposed to be there?"

"Half an hour." He said forlornly and I knew it was because the restaurant was a good forty minutes away walking in this weather.

I rose from my chair and planted a hand in the middle of his back and propelled him down the aisle and toward the stairs, "Let's go." I said.

"What? Where are we going?" He said.

Recalling my half ass thought of taking a picture of him earlier I said, "Booking."

"_What_!?" He nearly shrieked, "I haven't done anything lately! Come on Ted!"

We hit the stairs and I replied, "I'm kidding Bikky. We're going outside. You're never going to make it to the Garden on time, so we'll get you a cab."

"What about my tie?" He asked as we hit the flight on the second floor.

"I'll put it on you myself." I answered not stopping for an instant.

"How come you're being so nice to me?" He asked suspiciously and he was right to. There had been too many cases that had come to the 27th where Bikky had been involved with in some way shape or form. Most of the cops, myself included, dreaded the sight of him as it usually meant more paperwork than usual as reports concerning had to be written in a special way that kept his involvement with the case just clean enough to keep him out of juvenile hall. I sighed, the things we did for Ryo…

I answered his question gruffly as we made our way through the first floor of the precinct which was at this time of day, a madhouse of ringing phones, uniforms trying to get out of work early and newly arrested people loudly protesting their treatment. "Because!" I had to shout to be heard over the din, "If I can't have a good Valentines day then I'm gonna' make sure _somebody_ sure as hell does!"

We pushed through the entrance doors and onto the comparative quiet of the side walk, I shivered in the chill having forgotten my coat and looked up at the sky. Sure enough, the weatherman had been correct, the sun had burned off the cloud cover and was now shining happily down on New York. I pushed Bikky to the curb and leaned down to get closer at his neck. I pushed his coat off his shoulders a little and turned the collar of his shirt up, draping the tie around his neck, he spoke as I did so, "Yeah, I heard about your girlfriend, sorry."

"How did _you_ hear about it?" I asked a little peeved that the whole world seemed privy to the information of my personal life lately.

"Dee was talking to Ryo about it. He was gonna' try to set you up with an ex girlfriend of his or something." Bikky blew a stray lock of hair out of his eyes.

"How considerate of him." I muttered and suppressed a shudder. Dee fixing me up? I didn't think so. I got the distinct impression that while Dee may have good taste in guys, the sort of woman he would consider hot and attractive would be the sort I wouldn't want to fuck with John Ashcroft's dick.

"What happened anyway?" He asked.

"She started dating another guy." I said trying to loop the one end of the tie around the other with Bikky wiggling about the whole time.

"How's come?" He asked.

"Hold still!" I commanded and gave him the roundabout reason. "She liked his office better than mine."

"What so great about _his_ office?" Bikky asked finally holding still and letting my finish the knot.

"It's on Wall Street."

I straightened and turned looking out into the street for any available cab and pretended I didn't hear Bikky's response of, "Yeah, that explains it alright."

_Little punk's too streetwise for his own good. _I thought as I spotted a Yellow Cab stop at the curb half a block down and let out an old woman with a poodle on a leash. I waved wildly at the car and it pulled slowly up to us and stopped. I wrenched the door open and motioned for Bikky to get inside. He jumped into the back seat and the driver rolled down his window a crack to accept the ten I removed from my wallet and to hear the destination for his passenger.

Bikky waved to me from the back seat as the car pulled out into traffic. I returned the gesture and then hollered and jumped back five feet to avoid the next cab that swerved from traffic into the spot the former automobile had just vacated and nearly ran up onto the curb where I was standing. "Shit! Watch it man!" I yelled and turned to see J.J. and Laurelai watching me amusedly.

I felt my face flame with embarrassment and muttered an apology to the pretty college student for my language which she accepted with a laugh as she got in the cab then called to J.J. as just before she closed the door. "Thank's for everything Detective!"

J.J. looked at me with his usual dopey smile as I stood there rubbing my hands together, trying to warm them. "What are you so happy about?" I asked and moved past him to return to the warmth of the building.

He followed me inside and yelled at me over the commotion, "Oh nothing! I only just got the best witness in the world for an open and shut case is all!"

We made our way up the stairs to the relative calm of our department. "Share the wealth man," I said. "I've got two cases with six dead bodies between both and nobody's talking."

J.J. still maintained his expression of joy as we headed back to our desks and I heard him singing softly, "It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

I threw myself into my chair and looked across at him. "You _do_ know that Christmas was nearly two months ago, right?"

"Hey, I can't help it if this is turning out to be a great day!" He said and pulled up close to his desk laced his fingers together and rested his head on them, looking at me with big blue puppy dog eyes.

I stared at him incredulous, "Did you sniff some of that white powder that broke out in the evidence room or something? You're acting like you're on crack!" The lilac haired fruit only grinned wider and his body shook with suppressed giggles.

"Whatever man." I grumbled and returned to what I had been working on before Bikky had interrupted me. J.J. eventually calmed down but that didn't stop his incessant humming and unfortunately for me, he had moved from the Christmas collection on to (what I thought) N Syncs greatest hits, which in my humble opinion, numbered zero. "Would you stop?" I said lobbing a pencil at him which he easily avoided.

"Oh have a heart Ted!" He said brightly, "In an hour and a half I'm spending a romantic evening with my little snuggle bunny, can you blame me for being excited?"

"How can you have a romantic evening with a guy in a hospital? He's in traction for Christ's sake!" I said in frustration and reached for my, now flat, can of Coke.

"Oh come now, Ted, he's not in traction." J.J. said dismissing my statement with a fluttery waving of a hand then his eyes took on a wicked gleam and he smiled like a Cheshire, "of course, by the time I'm done with him…"

He let the sentence hang in the air as I spluttered on the soda I was drinking and strangled on the words, "Too much information J.J.! _Way_ too much!"

J.J. merely laughed at my discomfiture and tossed me a box of Kleenex to absorb the soda that had sprayed from my mouth to the paperwork on my desk and returned to his own tasks. I hunched my shoulders and banged out the last paragraph and hit the 'print' icon before rising from my seat and heading to the laserjet against the far wall.

I returned to my seat noticing that J.J. had finally fallen silent. I gathered up all the necessary forms and cover sheets and bound them all together with staples and binder clips and went to drop them in the filing cabinet before returning to my seat to begin the dreaded Littlefield chore. I spread out all the field notes I had taken and began jotting down major points and sentences I wanted to include on a sheet of scratch paper. I was just getting ready to start typing when J.J. stood up and reached for his jacket. I glanced at my watch and was shocked to see that it was ten till five. I propped my chin up in my hand and watched as he cleared his desk and began stowing various papers and file folders in his briefcase. He finished and looked at me, his grin returning. "Well at least I got out of here a little early!"

"You go girl." I said dryly.

He pulled the vase of flowers into the crook of his arm and looked at me quizzically, "How late are you staying?" He asked.

"Probably till seven, I want to get this one at least halfway finished." I jerked my eyes in the direction of the computer for emphasis.

"You really should go and do something tonight, even if it weren't the holiday, it's Friday night! I mean look," He said and gestured towards the window, "It's snowing again and the sun's going down, it would be a really nice evening to walk around the town."

I glanced in the direction he was pointing to see that it was indeed sprinkling large fluffy flakes of snow outside in the city, so much for the weatherman's prediction of clear skies for the rest of the day! "I don't think I'd make very good company." I stated flatly.

"Don't be too sure about that." He winked at me, now what the hell did _that_ mean?

J.J. turned and headed for the row of coats and called over his shoulder, "Don't work too hard!"

I laughed and yelled back, "I never do!"

I waved to him after he had put on his coat and headed down the stairs. A few minutes later I repeated the same to the bustle of people who did the same and headed out of the office, making way for the skeleton second shift that would make up the department for the remainder of the day and into the night. I turned back to my notes and began composing the body of the report I had to write.

It was a pretty twisted case and had involved three different divisions of the 27th, Criminal Investigations, Narcotics, and the Department of Internal Affairs. Three bodies had been found tossed in a dumpster outside of a local pizza joint. When the apartment of one victim had been searched there had been three kilos of cocaine and more heroin than I had seen in my life found in the closet. To top it all off a notebook had been discovered hidden under the mattress in the bedroom filled with shipment notes, customers' names and numbers, and references to police payoffs scribbled in the margins. I wrote down the lines of politically correct jargon Rose insisted we type all our information in and thought that if I were writing this in plain English it would make for a great novel. I was so engrossed in what I was typing that, for the second time that day, I didn't notice the person that came up the stairs and walked down the aisle towards me.

I jumped when she stood at the side of my desk and got my attention by saying, "What kind of guy stays late at work on Valentines day?"

I looked up to see J.J.'s witness from earlier in the day, Laurelai Broukhov. I smiled at her and leaned back in my chair. "The kind of guy that's too dedicated?"

She laughed, "Nah, I think it's the sort that doesn't have any plans."

I surveyed her new appearance and I had to say, I definitely approved. She was carrying her jacket and wraps in her arms but she was now wearing a form fitting white V-neck sweater, and black stretch pants, the material flaring out slightly at her feet so all I could see was the toes of the black dress boots she wore. In addition to the silver earrings she now sported a pendant shaped like a snowflake. Combined with her shining black hair and swarthy skin, she looked like some sort of beautiful ice queen out of a children's fairy tail and I found myself seriously reconsidering my whole, "don't date younger women" rule.

I tried to play it cool and laced my fingers together behind my head, "And what are _your_ plans?" I asked.

"I'm getting some dinner, catching a movie and then taking my own dog for a midnight walk." She said and leaned against J.J.'s desk. "I was also hoping that you might like to join me for some of that."

"How do you know that I don't have someone waiting for me?" I grinned.

"Because I already asked your partner." She crossed her arms and smirked. "He personally guaranteed me that you didn't have anything on for tonight and that I would be able to find you here at this time."

"I guess I'm going to have to thank him them." I said.

She laughed and asked, "So you're interested."

I leaned forward in my chair, reaching for the mouse, and told her, "Very." I saved what I had written and straightened my desk as best as I could and stood up. "Just let me get my coat." We walked down to where I had stowed it that morning and I shrugged into it.

We went down the stairs as she tugged on her own winter gear. It was then that I noticed what the patches on the sleeves of her bomber jacket said. The one on the left read "Alaska's Iditarod: 1987" the one on the right said the same but for the year 1990. I chuckled and said when we stepped out onto the street, "So _that's_ how you knew about my dog. You're interested in dog mushing?"

"_Interested_?" She laughed loudly at that. "Are you kidding? This one," she said touching the one from '87', "was the year my dad took first place. And this one here," she grinned, "was the year I took twelfth."

I stared at her for a moment, shocked for one, that she was into what I considered an extreme sport and for another, if she had been in the '90' race, that would make her at the very least… "Say how old are you anyway, I thought you said you were a student."

"I am." She replied. "You didn't specify if I was an undergrad or not. And by the way, I'm twenty seven."

I laughed and spoke, "Not to get off subject but where were you thinking about eating?"

"There's this great little steakhouse about 15 blocks from here."

"Jimmy's? I've been there, sounds great. You want to take a cab or walk it?" I asked nodding to the snow that flew through the air.

"Walking's fine." She said and we set off.

I returned to my previous line of questioning after we crossed the street. "So you're a grad student huh? What are you getting, a Masters?"

"No, I'm finishing my Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine." She said easily and put out her hand to catch a particularly large snowflake and watched it melt in her hand.

"So I'm on a date with a doctor." I said, smiling wickedly as I remembered my mothers snide comment of what women in that profession thought of men who were in mine.

"Not until May." She said.

"So what happens then?" I asked.

"I'd like to stay in New York for awhile, but eventually I'll probably go back to Anchorage and work at my Dad's clinic."

I mentally slapped myself as I remembered trying to figure out what ethnicity she was earlier in the day and I felt like an idiot for not guessing native American of some sort. We continued talking as we made our way over snow slicked streets and were a block away from the steakhouse when I saw a street vendor outside who was rapidly closing up shop to get out of the weather, "Hold on a second." I told Laurelai, and dashed over to the man.

I exchanged a few words and bills before returning to where my date stood smiling. I handed her the half dozen white roses in blue paper, the only bouquet he'd had left besides buttercups. "Happy Valentines Day." I said, feeling the blood rush into my face for the second time that day.

"Thank you." She grinned at me and with her free hand she touched my cheek, "You're cute when you blush."

I felt my face flame so hot I was sure that by now it must match my fiery hair and she chuckled, leaning in close. I felt her lips brush against my own and my legs turned to Jell-O. She pulled back and gazed at my face, which was now grinning at her like a twelve year old in a candy store. She laughed again, and took my hand, "Let's go eat." She said and led me to the front door of the restaurant.

The last thought that went through my dazed mind before she led me through the entrance was that, straight or not, in a relationship or not, the first thing I was going to do when I say J.J. on Monday was wrap my arms around him and give him the biggest kiss of gratitude he'd had in his life…

Disclaimers and Corrections because I just KNOW that there is someone out there who will email me for this stuff:

All the streets in this story came out of my head, I don't know if they exist or not in NYC. The thing about killing malamute pups for not meeting breed standard, I don't know if it happens in NYC or not, but it happens PLENTY in my state, so I'm going with what I know. The REAL first place winner of the 1987 Iditarod was Susan Butcher (she freaking rocks!!! Three years straight people!! THREE YEARS!!) I know two things about actual law enforcement procedure 1. Jack 2. Shit. Sorry if I screwed up terms, procedure, etc. in this fic people. Everything I know about it I learned from "Homicide: Life on the Street" and well, we know how INCREDIBLY accurate T.V. is. 

That said thanks for reading! Any question or comments can be sent to all flames and negative criticism should be directed to Jan e!

Alaskan Blue


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